X-Post: Achiote Press & Palabra Magazine

from Rigoberto González’s blog at Poetry Foundation

Achiote Press & Palabra Magazine

I say this without the least bit of exaggeration: keep your eye on these two literary ventures because they’re going to impress you with the journeys they have embarked on and with the heights they’ll inevitably reach.

Co-founded in 2006 by poet and book reviewer Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam), Achiote Press publishes two chapbooks each season: a single-author chapbook and a chap-journal featuring poetry, prose, essay, or translation by authors from diverse cultural and aesthetic backgrounds. Co-founders Jennifer Reimer, Len Shneyder, and art director Jason Buchholz help select, edit and produce works that address “what it means to bear witness, to use adaptations as resistance, to cross borders, to map ourselves onto a dislocated world, to speak in exile, and to suffer diasporic hunger.”

Past projects include works by three of my favorite writers: Javier Huerta, Barbara Jane Reyes and Francisco X. Alarcón. Projects to look forward to: an all-Latina writer issue with Cristina García, Emmy Pérez, Brenda Cárdenas, Gabriela Erandi Rico, and Maria Tuttle; and an issue featuring several Native Pacific Island writers.

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Palabra Magazine is a no apologies, no nonsense literary journal founded by Chicana dramatist and poet elena minor in Los Angeles. This magazine is a forum that showcases Chicano/ Latino writing that’s all about (warning: Chicano-speak ahead): “exploration, risk and ganas—the myriad intersections of thought, language, story and art—el más allá of letters, symbols and spaces into meaning. It’s about writing that cares as much about language and its structure as about content and storytelling—and that shows awareness of and attention to the possibilities of both. Mostly it’s about work with the emotional fiber that threads all honest art… Its intent is to present an eclectic and adventurous array of thought and construct, alma y corazón, and a few carcajadas woven in for good measure.”